So the FBI released their crime statistics/summary for 2009.
Violent crime went down. Of course, everyone wants to come up with reasons for this. LA Times reports:
Crime experts have cited several possible explanations for the falling crime rate, including better policing, a swelling of the prison population, the decline of the crack cocaine epidemic and an aging population. But regardless of the reason, crime fell sharply during the 1990s and has declined gradually since then.
And you’ll have your pro-gun people attributing it to the fact that more law-abiding citizens are armed, and criminals don’t like getting shot either. I’m not going to hypothesize.
What I find more interesting is to look at the breakdown. Most of the breakdown is stressing “murder by firearm, especially handgun”. But look at the last column: “Hands, Fist, Feet, etc.” (which includes pushing). Almost 6% of the total murders used no weapon at all.
You ban guns, you ban knives, people are still going to find ways to commit evil acts. If someone really wants to hurt you or kill you, they will. Are we going to ban hands and feet? Violence is not an act of an implement — we don’t blame hands when someone pushes someone else off a cliff to their death, so why do we blame a gun when an evil person uses a gun to injure another?
Stuff From Hsoi 
Dude, you just *know* that it was those Skittle flavored unicorn farts that calmed everything down last year.
LOL
Nice find there! I am always interested in looking at the cold hard facts. And you are right. Crime isn’t about the weapons used, it is about the mindset and how situations are developing where one person aims to kill another. Big issues and big problem to fix…
The reality is, you’ll never cure this problem. That is, it will never go away 100%. Look at every other animal in this world. Most live and let live, generally killing only for food — any other “violence” tends to just be displays. But sometimes one crosses another and the one doesn’t allow that to happen again.
The reality is, people need to look beyond implements and look to the heart of the matter. Banning implements addresses a symptom, not a root cause.
Exactly so. I have heard numerous people say they couldn’t be trusted with a gun because they would “kill somebody”. Often these things were said as they sat at a desk with a large pair of scissors, several pens, a paperweight, and sometimes a letter opener- yet somehow all these potentially dangerous items, and the 2-ton car they drive to work, have never been used to kill anyone!
Perhaps it gives some insight into their psyche…..
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